Francis and the revolution against the Logos

In a January 2014 article for First Things, George Weigel shared the following vignette:

At an academic conference years ago, a distinguished Catholic philosopher remarked (perhaps hyperbolically) that “If the pope said that ‘2+2 = 5,’ I’d believe him.” An even more distinguished Catholic philosopher gave the correct, and far more Catholic, response: “If the Holy Father said that ‘2+2 = 5,’ I would say publicly, ‘Perhaps I have misunderstood His Holiness’s meaning.’ Privately, I would pray for his sanity.”

Whether or not this charming little exchange between Catholic philosophers actually occurred some years ago matters very little.

What does matter, and a great deal, however, is that something far more serious is happening in the Church in real life, and the stakes could hardly be higher.

Rather than proposing a nonsensical mathematical formula that every thinking human being is immediately capable of recognizing as absurd, Francis is actively promoting theological nonsense that far too many are either unable, or unwilling, to recognize as the blasphemy and heresy that it truly is.

The correct and only Catholic response to such things is to publicly warn others of the grave danger that Francis’ errors represent and to pray for his conversion.

Even many of those who presumably “get it,” however, find themselves (like the “more distinguished” philosopher in Weigel’s story) incapable of moving beyond imagining that perhaps “His Holiness’s meaning” is being misunderstood.

Such persons can bear only to speak of certain “ambiguities” in the text of Amoris Laetitia, and to call for “clarifications” in light of what Francis “seems” to be saying.

For example, in a recent essay, Catholic Professor of Philosophy, Edward Feser, writes:

Then there is the fact that the Argentine bishops’ directive for implementing Amoris also appears to be saying that “living in continence” – that is to say, refraining from sexual intercourse — “may not, in fact, be feasible” for some couples living in an adulterous relationship, and that the couple “would fall into a subsequent fault by damaging the children of the new union” if they did so refrain … And in this case, not only has Pope Francis not rejected the Argentine bishops’ interpretation, he has warmly endorsed it.

Feser goes on to clarify what the Argentine bishops’ directive, and Francis, “appear” to be proposing:

(1) Adulterous sexual acts are in some special circumstances morally permissible.

(2) It is sometimes impossible to obey the divine commandment against engaging in adulterous sexual acts.

Even after having acknowledged that Francis “warmly endorsed” these very propositions, Feser states:

This does not entail that Pope Francis really is committed to propositions (1) and (2) or to any other proposition that contradicts Church teaching. After all, in a now famous interview with Fr. Spadaro three years ago, the pope said that while he has “not spoken much about” the Church’s controversial teachings vis-à-vis sexual morality, nevertheless “the teaching of the church… is clear and I am a son of the church.”

The trouble is that if the pope would reject (1) and (2), then it is simply not clear exactly what Amorisis teaching, especially if the Argentine bishops’ interpretation is correct, as the pope has said it is. There is cognitive dissonance here that needs to be resolved.

Yes, there is cognitive dissonance here to be sure!

The remedy, however, is rather obvious; namely, taking Francis at his word and facing that reality head on.

The enemies of the Church are, as Pope St. Pius X warned, crafty by nature, “striving, by arts, entirely new and full of subtlety…” (cf . Pascendi Dominici Gregis).

Being inspired by the Evil One, however, they are also immensely prideful – even to the point where they cannot help but boast openly of their true intentions; if only one has ears to hear and the wherewithal to listen.

For instance, when Francis disseminates a text throughout the Universal Church suggesting that adultery and fornication are not necessarily mortal sins (AL 301), that the demands of the Divine Law in the matter are impossible for some persons to keep (ibid.), that God Himself asks us to persist in such acts (AL 303), and then issues a letter explicitly saying “there are no other interpretations,” why not simply accept that this is precisely what he means to say?

Feser, not unlike so many others in the Church today, apparently has an irrational fear of viewing the matter plainly, and likely for the very same reason that Francis is unwilling to answer the five simple YES/NO questions posed in the dubia:

Each one is imbued with the ethos of the Second Vatican Council, and has, either unwittingly or not, substantially rejected the Logos – the “rational order of the universe” as expressed in human language with the highest degree of precision and clarity possible this side of Heaven in the immutable doctrines of the Holy Catholic Church.

In a 2012 lecture given in light of the 50th anniversary of the Council’s calling, Cardinal Godfried Danneels (yes, he of St. Gallen’s mafia fame) described it as follows:

Up until that time (1962), the language of ecclesiastical authority was primarily juridical and legislative language. It was rational, conceptual, concise, and clear‐cut. Vatican II chose a more pastorally‐oriented language: less clear‐cut, suggestive, not determinant, calm, and serenely dialogical.

Get that? The Council deliberately oriented itself away from the “rational” and the “clear cut;” the same that Francis scoffs at as the “black and white” of mere “rigorists.”

My friends, this is nothing less than a rejection of the Logos – He who said, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”

It is for this reason that the Jesuit historian Fr. John O’Malley, S.J., author of the book What Happened at Vatican II, did well to describe the Council as a “linguistic event;” a new way of expressing things that “marked a definitive break with previous Councils.”

A linguistic event…

Quoting his predecessor Pope Leo XIII, Pope St. Pius X accused the modernists of engaging in linguistic subterfuge; deliberately “perverting the meaning and force of things and words.” (ibid.)

With all of this in mind, it may come as little surprise to readers of this space that the French Revolution, wherein the rights of man were boldly asserted over and against the rights of Christ the King and His Holy Catholic Church, has also been described as a “linguistic event.”

Indeed, the uber-liberal Cardinal Suenens is well known for having declared with glee that “Vatican II is the 1789 of the Church!”

This brings us back to Amoris Laetitia…

Recall, if you will, that prior to declaring that “there are no other interpretations” of Amoris Laetitia than that found in the directives of the Buenos Aires bishops, Francis pointed to the presentation on the exhortation given by Cardinal Schönborn as the “interpretive key” to the text.

According to Schönborn:

For me Amoris Laetitia is, first and foremost, a “linguistic event”, as was Evangelii Gaudium. Something has changed in ecclesial discourse. This change of language was already perceptible during the Synod process. Between the two Synods of October 2014 and October 2015, it may clearly be seen how the tone became richer in esteem, as if the different situations in life had simply been accepted, without being immediately judged or condemned.

And so it seems we have come full circle…

The crisis besetting the Church in our day did not begin with Francis, it simply flourished on his watch like never before; most notably with the publication of Amoris Laetitia – a document cut entirely from conciliar cloth.

The dubia is a good and necessary step toward, God willing, officially putting an end to the Franciscan reign of terror at some point in 2017.

While this indeed gives us something to look forward to, ridding the Church of Francis would amount only to addressing an especially nasty symptom, while the disease itself, Vatican Council II, remains unaddressed.

Given that the overwhelming preponderance of our churchmen – including the authors of the dubia – are willing participants in the conciliar revolution against the Logos, whether in ignorance or not, we can rest assured that the ecclesial crisis will continue post-Francis.

Indeed, it is more likely that the putrid state of the affairs will worsen until such time as the Church is sufficiently brought to her knees to fulfill the request of Our Lady of Fatima at long last; at which point we can well expect Heaven to respond with the outpouring of grace necessary to quell the conciliar uprising once and for all.

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John314December 20, 2016

A “linguistic event” makes perfect sense to describe the conciliar reforms hence we get “ordinary” vs “extraordinary” mass. Everything is subject to an Hegelian Dialectic. They move two steps forward and are forced one step backwards—always chipping away at the Truth.

Louie, I couldn’t agree with you more. The four cardinals are moving in the right direction but they are more part of the problem due their embracing Vatican II.
The New Mass, is a product of Hell and to their it must one day be thrown. The sooner the better. Sure seems to me that things are getting to the breaking point and that soon Almighty God is going to have His say. May the Immaculate Heart triumph soon!

It’s not clear what direction the dubia Cardinals are moving—–I have grave doubts that it is in the “right” direction. Cardinal Burke made clear in a very recent interview that he (and by extension the “dubia” document) is not declaring the doubtful statements in Amoris Laetitia to be heretical. So what difference does it make whether Bergoglio responds or in the absence of a papal response if the “dubia” Cardinals publish a correction? A correction by Cardinal Burke, et al., has no Magisterial value.

Furthermore the whole matter of this “dubia” is a distraction from what is/has occurred. Most dioceses around the world (particularly in Germany, Netherlands and the US) the so-called “pastoral” practices blessed in “Amoris Laetitia” have been occurring for over a decade. The Bishop’s Vicar General in my own Diocese (in residence at my parish) made it particularly clear during a recent Sunday sermon that Amoris Laetitia has been in practice in the Diocese on a case-by-case basis for quite a while; he told parishioners not be alarmed and Amoris Laetitia was nothing new.

Finally “Amoris Laetitia” is nothing more than a consistent outcome of the Vatican II heretical Constitutions. The Vatican II Constitutions profess heresies which open the door to every modernist error. Until the Vatican II heresies are declared as such and the adhering popes are declared heretics nothing will change.

In Abp Lefebvre’s negotiations to regularize the SSPX the only things Wojtyla (posing as JPII) and Ratzinger (posing as head of the CDF) wanted was Lefebvre’s oath of allegiance to the Vatican II Constitutions and the Novus Ordo service. That alone is enough to convince me that the conciliar church and its conciliar popes are false.

Louie et al, A cool analysis of Pope Francis entire reign plainly reveals a classic example of a Modernist, who makes statements that are patently heretical as well as those that are completely faithful to the perennial magesterium. Such persons have obviously lost the true faith, since we who hold it would never, under pain of death, deny Our Lord and His perfect teachings. So we will do better to recognize the genuine disposition of the current Holy Father, which is apostate while beguiling the juvenile optimists, and speak with cold clarity the truth of our eroded situation. Though all but one hidden Catholic in the world should stray, Christ’s true Church will remain. And then the end. Pray for the Church in these days of diabolical poison. The antidote is “Jesus is the living God, and among men, He alone.”

There was once a question posed concerning the seeming talents of American bishop that leaned more to the administrative than to the theological. Maybe some of what we see today is a direct result of that error. Yet, it is true all over the world not just here in the USA. How thin has become our dedication to the faith; how shallow has become our understanding of what has been always true. The example given of mathematics is certainly a good one for everyone knows the factors and how to add them. Anyone would be considered uneducated who could not respond to such a formula correctly. For us, in the Church, it was always that way. Our tenets have always been as clear as numbers. We could see easily how they should add up. At one time like the “ad orientem” of the liturgy, we all, ALL, turned to the faith primarily. How did we lose that well-quoted phrase, “Is the Pope Catholic?” Now our focus for validity is no longer on the divine but on the human, on one person. If the clergy can’t see the error and the harm that has been thrust on the Church, we are illiterate indeed. So we are dealing with ignorance, fear, deceit or insanity. We have a textbook case here of psychological turned sociological co-dependence. So what is Codependency and who really has it? There are many definitions, but basically, Codependents are people who let the feelings and actions of another person affect them to the point that they feel like they have lost control of their own lives. It is a subconscious denial or rejection of reality. Logically, the integration of the twisted reality is lost to despair as our response is changed to hide that which is unacceptable or unchangeable. Fear becomes the dominant response so as not to upset the false reality and avoid the necessary choices to return to sanity. The usual example is that of addiction in the home whether drug, alcohol, gambling, etc. which no one wants to expose until a distinct reality is born out of fiction. That is what is going on in the Church today: co-dependence on one man a Pope who no one, few, want to expose to the reality of Tradition. The issue is bad enough in the family, worse still in a political leader, but in a Pope of the entire world, it is monumental. The time comes when intervention is needed to correct the lie everyone had to integrate to survive. The same is true now. After more than half a century of co-dependence from a council, and now on a pope, the Church has come to the moment of truth with the contradictions of “Amoris Laetitia”. The ecclesiological intervention has begun at last with the “dubia”. It will not be long now before something will have to give.

Rcaamo, interestingly put. So sad for me to be born into this. God is the ONLY one who has allowed the veil to be lifted in certain degrees for many like me. I hope and pray for this “intervention”. Our Lady of Good Success, speedily send to us that Holy Prelate that you promised

So long as we live in this fragile body, we can neither be free from sin nor live without weariness and sorrow. Gladly would we rest from all misery, but in losing innocence through sin we also lost true blessedness. Therefore, we must have patience and await the mercy of God until this iniquity passes, until mortality is swallowed up in life.

Even back when I attended major seminary years ago (no, I was not ordained, but put out by the formation team and my bishop because I was “too rigid and conservative”), I often remarked to my bishop, other priests, and seminary faculty staff that we needed a pope to call a “Vatican III” Council to completely clarify Vatican II. Of course, I got laughed at and bounced out after the formation team listened to me for three years. Yes, I kid you not, I was shown the door a mere six months prior to what would have been my ordination as a transitional deacon.

Al, I think there have been far too many good men who were “bounced out” because they were FAITHFUL. I’m inclined to believe in these days of unfaithfulness amongst so many of the clergy, one can do a far better job of evangelizing as a layman – especially when our “pope” says proselytizing is a sin! He or she is not crippled by an unfaithful bishop. In fact, I know of a woman who wanted to join a religious order at early retirement but found those that would accept her weren’t very Catholic. The traditional ones, on the other hand, didn’t need older vocations as they were doing great with young ones. I keep asking myself – “Why can’t they see it?” It’s so obvious! I think the only true answer is – they don’t want to see it. They like this ‘nuchurch’.
If you haven’t already checked out torchofthefaith.com, give it a try. It’s run by a husband and wife in England. He had a horrible experience in seminary and left because he just couldn’t take what was going on there, either. It’s another good and faithful site I think you’ll enjoy.
Merry Christmas!

This is correct Louie. Let nobody be under any illusion that the removal of Francis will restore anything. If anything it will slow down the revolution. If Francis were to go then another modernist would take his place and continue the post-conciliar suicide. Even if someone like Burke were to become the next successor we would still have a Church adhering to V2 and the Novus Ordo. In my opinion not one of the current members of the college would bring the Church back from is auto-demolotion until the consecration of Russia is done.